American Asshole Seeks Sanity?

I’ve kind of had my fill of this to be completely honest. I see it far too often. But I’m SO tired of gays who say that “gay doesn’t define who I am”. They use it to describe why they are republicans, why they are devout Christians, why they work at Fox, and even why they don’t believe in gay marriage. Well I have news for you queers…gay IS who you are.

Being gay, does, and will continue to, define more parts of my life than any other single aspect of myself. Being gay will define who I love, who I start a family with, it defines a large part of where I choose to live, it even defines on some level where I work. I am a gay man and that fact is weaved through so many other aspects of my life.

I think it wont always be this way. I think 50 years from now when the world is more accepting of lgbt people, that generation wont have to define themselves so rigidly as gay. I hope that’s true anyways. But until then we have to do it. I cant go live in Mississippi and be an openly and proud gay man in the sticks and hope to live freely and safely. I have to define myself as a gay man first because sadly that’s how the world defines me. Until that changes I will proudly call myself a GAY man, not simply a man.

So to all of those people who claim that their sexuality doesn’t define them, I dare you to find an aspect of your life that your sexuality doesn’t weave into, even on a small level. The truth is that it plays a major role in most aspects of it. So shut the fuck up and be a gay man. That’s all for today!

When I was 8 or 9 my mother decided that I needed to start hanging out with a better group of people. She didn’t like my friends and thought I was being led down a path similar to my two older half brothers. So she signed me up to be in a ballet. Yeah…

She had a close friend whose daughters ballet troupe were in desperate need of young boys to be in the party scene of the Nutcracker. Apparently young boys weren’t lining up to wear tights and prance around stage after school. The goal was to introduce me to a new group of kids who had discipline and bigger ideas for their futures. Let me tell ya, it sucked! I remember having to go to rehearsal twice a week and lamenting it the entire time. About two weeks before opening night we moved into a theater for rehearsals and started wearing our costumes to each show, I HATED wearing mine. It was this lame dorky British school boy type thing no one has worn in a 100 years or so. A week before opening, the director came to me and asked if I would be interested in being in a small scene before the party. My mom said yes of course. I remember looking up at her with this look of pure shock. This woman knew I hated every second of it, and now she just pushed me further into the beasts mouth. The year before I had broken one of her crystal figurines…I think mother dearest was getting even. 

This of course meant I had to learn a new part in a week. But even WORSE…I had another costume. After my first scene I had to run from the stage and into the mens changing area and rush to get my party outfit on. That’s when it happened. The first run through we did I ran backstage and into the changing room, shedding my jacket I grabbed my new shirt from the rack and I saw him. Across the room was the man playing the Nutcracker. They had found a real ballet guy to play the part even though it was a low budget affair. That day, in that locker room, at that moment, I saw my first real penis ever, besides my own of course. He was maybe 25 and very much a dancer in build. The only thing unique about him I guess was that he had the hairiest bush I’ve ever seen to this day. It was the early 90’s but I guess this guy had held onto the trend of “let it grow” so popular in the 80’s. 

I froze of course, cause at that age when confronted with something like that you have to freeze. I just stared at it. Gawking like what I imagine so many of my peers would be doing if they saw one of the women’s bare breasts. I had known I liked guys already of course but I guess until that moment it wasn’t a sexual urge, more of an interest. Like for example I didn’t like the girls in school the same way I didn’t like power rangers. And I liked boys in the same way I dug comic books. It wasn’t seedy or sexy, it just was. Cause before you go through the preteen change nothing is overtly sexual, its just a thing that is true about yourself. I’m not even sure I had the faintest idea what sex between two people was. But somehow I know I liked what I saw that day.

I feel like I must of looked at it for hours but in reality it must of only been a couple seconds. It was a changing room after all and the man was changing. I remember him slipping into his briefs and consciously averting my gaze and refocusing on the task of changing. I took two things out of that changing room that day, a feeling I couldn’t explain that assured me that what I was feeling was, and had to remain, a secret; and of course that I couldn’t wait till the next rehearsal to see it again.

Sadly like so many desires, the want to see him naked again didn’t come to past. I supposed I was just “lucky” in my timing that first day cause each and every time after that, when I entered that changing room he was either already fully dressed or was not in the room at all. I started to ask my mom if I could stay to watch the rest of the show after my part. Since the kids were only in the first part we were free to go after our scenes were done. But we could stay and either sit in the audience or, the one I preferred, stand just off stage and watch. I enjoyed this one cause the cast would come close to the side of the stage often and since the Nutcracker was a ballet dancer, he was wearing the atypical bulging tights.

Here on the edge of the stage I tried to picture his penis again and again. I was never doing anything with it in my fantasy. I didn’t have some sick strange desire to have sex with this 25yo, not that I would even know at that age what that was. But I just wanted to look at it. I wanted to see it again. That is something I’ve held onto for so long in my life. Even at 8 or 9 I knew something was up with my sexuality. Even before sexuality had anything to do with it.

So to you, Nutcracker dancer, whoever you are, and wherever you are. Thank you, that unintended exposure gave me something I never knew I wanted…desire.

Its no secret there is a divide in the homosexual community. I think for the most part gays and lesbians get along just fine. But there are factions of these groups that despise each other. I think many in the lesbian community see gay men as prancing embarrassing jokes that are lumped into their category and then not taken seriously as a whole. Gay men I think often see lesbians as a figure of seriousness that rains on their parade. Many gays just want to enjoy the pure awesomeness of being gay and they feel lesbians are always going on and on about a cause.

Even within the groups of gays and lesbians that get along, it often feels like two separate entities. And ya know what? That’s hurting us as a people.

When the religious fanatics come busting down our doors they are always railing against one thing…gays. In about 90% of their arguments you hear male to male pronouns.

“Its Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!”
“First you want to marry a man and next it will be a dog!”
“Gays are destroying our country!”

It’s honestly rare you see something picking specifically on lesbians, or even lumping them with us in protest. And there is a simple reason for this fact. The existence of lesbians break down the arguments against homosexuality. You see almost every negative fact out there about gays; promiscuity, child rearing, STD transmission, drug use, its all about men. Lets just take one of these for now shall we?

Religious fanatics refuse to support healthcare reform that would give help to victims oh HIV and AIDS. They say that AIDS is a “…gift from God to cleanse the earth of the sinning homosexual.”. There’s one small problem with this though. Lesbians, for the most part, don’t get AIDS. As a single group they are LEAST at risk for HIV transmission. Even lower rates of transmission then heterosexual people.

So they ignore lesbians, they act as if they don’t exist. Because for their argument to hold water, it would mean that God hates gays…but is pretty down with lesbians, even more so then straight people. So they focus on gay men, the largest segment of the countries population that transmits HIV. And here in is the key to victory. We need to bind ourselves together. Homosexuality is not made up of gay men and lesbians, its made up of homosexuals. We need to show them that there is no difference between us and that we are united. Because the fight may be on gay men’s door, but as we fall, so do they. Making it so gay men cant get married also means lesbians cannot. Lets not let them tear us apart.

So recently I was listening to this debate about male and female inequality when it comes to sexuality. The discussion made complete sense. Essentially it was talking about how nearly every boy on the planet learns how to pleasure themselves around the age 12. They start to explore themselves and train themselves in the art of the orgasm. How to get to one, how to slow it down, how to have multiple ones. But young girls don’t usually have this experience.

See with young girls we as a society want to keep them innocent. We don’t encourage them to explore themselves and understand how their own bodies work. So there is this inequality. By the age 18, most boys have had nearly 6 years to understand exactly what will happen when it comes to sex, but many women haven’t even ever touched themselves. What ends up happening is that women then look to the man to show them what sex is. They search for validation from the man and seek his approval in the bedroom.

The discussion went on to say that if only we encouraged out young girls to explore themselves like their male counterparts, a woman would understand exactly what an orgasm is and know that she is in control of her own body and its sexual joy. Then she wouldn’t put all that on the men in her life and end up in situations that cause her to get pregnant or contract STD’s too early. The discussion essentially said we need to destigmatize female masturbation in order for girls to understand that sex with a man is only ONE possible place they can achieve sexual satisfaction. So if they don’t feel comfortable in a situation with a boy they know that its not the only option available to her.

This all makes perfect sense to me. It is pretty shocking when you think about statistics that say a majority of women don’t masturbate or use any sex toys on themselves. Boys are doing that shit daily and are outpacing women in their sexual confidence.

So whats the answer here?

Some say that what we need to do is stop making female pleasure such a stigmatized thing. Research has shown that young girls who masturbate are NOT more likely to have sex with boys. In fact it shows the opposite. Some say we need to go even further and encourage our daughters to explore themselves and gain that confidence so that they don’t give their expectations to a boy in the wrong moment. While I see their point in this…I just cant imagine ever going to my future daughter and handing her a sex toy and telling her that its time she starts exploring herself. That’s just so awkward. Maybe women would feel differently and more comfortable doing that for their daughters? I don’t know. Im hoping that we just get to a place where young girls feel comfy doing it on their own just as young boys figure it out.

Here’s hoping…

Yesterday I finally got to see the horror film iv been waiting nearly 4 years to see. For those of you that haven’t heard, Cabin in the Woods was filmed in 2009. Yeah that’s a long ass time ago. Chris Hemsworth doesn’t even have Thor muscles in this movie (but he still has muscles, don’t worry gays). The reason it was delayed from release for so long is a complicated story. The official party line is that the studio wanted to convert it to 3D after it was filmed but the Director and Producer refused. While I have a feeling this is true, it still doesn’t account for it sitting in a vault for 3 years. The true story is a bit more about contracts and side bets on other movies. Rumor has it that the studio who made it promised to release this passion project of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s if Joss agreed to direct another film. But when Joss backed out of that project for scheduling conflicts, the studio refused to release Cabin and locked it in a vault somewhere in a deep dark cave. Fortunately for us, studios change hands, money is exchanged often, and Chris Hemsworth became a big enough star to draw in fans. So we FINALLY got to see the amazing film. Lets dig in shall we?

SPOILERS AHEAD

Cabin in the woods was the brain child of Joss Whedon. If you don’t know who that is please punch yourself in the face. He created Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Doctor Horrible, and for you young boys and girls, is the writer/director of the upcoming Avengers. Basically, this man defined a lot of my youth.

He and Drew Goddard got together and wrote the screenplay (first draft anyway) over a long weekend. Drew Goddard also directed Cabin which was his first time in the role after writing some of the most unique and loved tv and film projects around for the past decade.

Whats amazing about this film is that it unravels nearly every other horror film ever made and ever to be made. It doesn’t just rest on its own plotline, it says “hey you know what you love and hate about horror films? Well this is the reason they exist.”. And that is no small feat.

Lets start with the cast shall we?

Here we have 5 character archetypes that we have seen over and over and over again. But what is amazing is that they become these cliches right before our very eyes, and we have seen them so often in other movies it feels natural so we don’t question it…until one of the characters starts to question it. 

You have Dana, or virgin survivor. Sweet and innocent and rarely ever up for anything naughty. Except, when we first meet her she is prancing around in her undies in front of an open window, chatting with Curt casually, and discussing her lingering feelings for the teacher she was banging. But shortly into this movie ride we are on, she starts to become more virginal. At one point even saying she has never had sex, and then wondering why she even said that cause it wasn’t true.

Then we haveCurt, the jock. Strong, heroic, and always down to fuck! But once again when we first meet him we see that he is a very devoted bf to his lovely girlfriend. And further more, this man has got some brains on him. He lectures Dana about a book she is reading and suggests another to help her get through a class she is taking. But as soon as the Cabin comes into view, suddenly the steroids kick in. He wants to fuck in public, is crude, makes fun of his friends, and makes quick thoughtless decisions.

Next we have Jules, the blond slut (get it? her name is a euphemism for genitals). This character has a little less background to her then some of the others but we still get a glimpse of her before the cabin showing us that she is not just a slutty blond. For one, she isn’t a real blond, she tells us that she just dyed it. She also counsels Dana on her feelings for the old man she was banging, showing us she is a devoted and caring friend. And maybe the biggest clue of all, she is the navigator on the way to the cabin. She is holding a GPS and gives a monologue about the perils of going off the grid. But man when that cabin comes, she is shaking her ass in front of the fire, making out with a stuffed wolf, and acting about as smart as an 8yo. Oh and she is horny as fuck and wants to get boned hard, oh hi there Curt’s penis…

That brings us to Holden, the egghead (watch how easy this one is). When we first meet Holden he is framed as a jock. “Best hands on the field” according to Curt. He is adventurous and seems anxious to party it up. But then we get to the cabin and he…puts glasses on! Oh shit that was quick. He also suddenly knows how to read Latin and becomes a sensitive Romeo to Dana’s Juliet.

And we end on the anomaly. Marty, the fool (played amazingly by Fran Kranz, a favorite of the Joss Whedon actor tribe). Marty is a pot smoking…ummmmm, well he smokes a shit ton of pot. But this kid is also smart as hell. When we first meet him we already like him. He thinks outside the box and has a confidence that comes from testing his theories about the world. And for the most part, that’s how he stays. He isn’t a character that suddenly falls into his trap. We can see the system trying really hard…but it rarely works on him.

What makes this film amazing though, is that it doesn’t stop there. We are also introduced to these guys…

The two gentleman there are the game makers so to speak. These two guys use their skills to bring about…certain pain on our campers. I wont go to far into it cause I don’t want to spoil the delight they bring to the film. But suffice it to say that their inclusion is what pulls this film out of the horror genre, and also what snaps it back in (and yes that is Amy Acker of Angel fame between them).

Not only do these characters make the horror happen, but they make it look so easy, and funny. Their inclusion makes this movie two completely different films, which really makes it great when the two films collide.

What is it about you ask?

The entire movie, and meaning behind the plot, pays homage to other horror films. It’s actually kind of the whole point to the film. Quickly we learn that the world we live in is just masking a world where all the monsters we know aren’t real…are. And that is what makes this a Joss Whedon film. Everything from vampires, to angry molesting tree’s (Evil Dead reference) are real and are just waiting to get their hands on our happy campers. But the beauty of all of this is…they get to choose which one attacks them.

Very quickly our college kiddies are introduced to a cellar full of goodies. From dolls, to a wedding dress, to a spherical puzzle. But which do they choose? Dana, begins reading a diary about the first owners of the house they are staying in. And ohhhh its not a happy diary. It makes Anne Frank’s diary look like a Sesame Street book. And the choice is made. The zombified evil redneck former owners, pull themselves up from the dirty and start attacking our lovely cast.

Im not gonna go more into what happens cause I really think you should watch the movie but I will show you this screen-grab from the movie that shows all the choices they had from the basement…my personal favorite?…Unicorn…

Whats great and important to the believability of the main story, is that there are a ton of cameo’s from other great horror and sci-fi films in here. The board has the angry molesting tree, but it also has Deadites…both Evil Dead references. And then of course a lot of general horror references. Zombies, giant snakes, witches, clowns, the bride. What we are starting to understand about this shadowy group of office workers is that they are behind it all.

Even the cabin itself is a replica of the Evil Dead cabin…

Though its not an exact match, in a company that controls all of this area, and has a crew of maintenance workers, construction crews, and special effects teams, its not hard to see how it could have been updated since 1986.

What I love about Cabin in the Woods is that it doesn’t redefine horror, it destroys it. It tells us that we are not in control of what happens once we make that one bad decision, to not turn around when the crazy gas guy scares us, or to leave the room full of old artifacts alone. Once we make that one mistake, we must be punished and made to suffer.

I hope you all go see this film and love it as much as I did.

People always talk about the legalization of weed like its an inevitability. But lets be honest, its not going to ever happen. And for good reason.

Here is the honest truth people. Marijuana effects your motor skills, it slows your reaction times, and makes the thought process more labored. Even if you say you are one of those people unaffected by weed, the fact is that MOST people are affected in those ways. The reason that weed will never be legalized is because its too hard to regulate. You see there is no measure for how much weed is a functional amount and how much is too much. In fact, there isn’t even a measure for if someone is currently high on it right now. So how can we regulate it?

If someone gets high out of their minds, and gets behind the wheel, and causes a major accident, what then? There is no way to prove that the person is currently high so do we just ignore the fact that their slow reaction times were caused by excessive weed use? Do we just say YES they were high cause they seem high? Its an open door to massive lawsuits to the state and federal government. By legalizing weed without the ability to prove if someone is high or not would cause so many problems I cant even list them all. We cant just legalize a substance that causes chaos like that and hope for the best.

I think the answer here is to decriminalize it. By turning weed from a prison sentence into a hefty fine, we remove a lot of the burden from our prison systems and the government can make a little money. Someone recently published a statistic that the average $200 corner transaction can cost the state $100,000. Lets shift that burden onto the people who are buying and selling drugs. Want to do that fine, but if you are caught you have to pay this fine. That seems like the furthest logical step, at least until weed can be regulated like alcohol.